Drafter
Clerk 06/01/2005
title
A MOTION approving the business case of the King County Health Reform Initiative.
body
WHEREAS, national health care costs in this country are skyrocketing, approaching a national crisis, and
WHEREAS, King County, like other employers in the region, state, and nation, is facing an urgent need to be able to provide affordable, available quality health care to employees while effectively containing the rise in employee health care costs, and
WHEREAS, King County the employee benefits budget is expected to increase eleven percent or more per year for at least the next five years, and
WHEREAS, the budget advisory task force recommended addressing the spiraling cost of health care, and
WHEREAS, to address this critical issue, an internal county team conducted a focused and comprehensive research effort to seek best practice approaches from research institutes as well as actual applications, and
WHEREAS, in November 2003, the King County council approved a four-year benefits labor-management collaboration project in the 2004 Budget Ordinance to develop an education strategy that drives home to employees the very real and personal effect the health care crisis has on their benefits and provides them resources and tools to obtain high quality health care at a price affordable to both the employees and the county, and
WHEREAS, in December 2003, King County Executive Ron Sims created the health care advisory task force ("HAT Force"), and
WHEREAS, the council adopted the initial findings report of the HAT Force by Motion 11890, in which the HAT Force recommended, among other things, that the county focus on reducing the "demand side" of health care by moving employees and family members with higher risks to lower risk, keeping those with lower risk healthy, and teaching consumers how to make more effective health care choices by conducting employee surveys and focus groups to determine the most relevant and effective co...

Click here for full text